1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates to interactive charts and, in particular, to the creation, sharing and embedding of interactive charts.
2. Related Art
Microsoft Excel is typically used to enter data into spreadsheets and sometimes make charts or graphs from that data. Users typically enter the data into a spreadsheet in columns and rows. Users can then highlight the data that they want to use to make a chart and then select a chart type. Excel then generates the chart, which can be copied and pasted into other documents (e.g., Microsoft Word documents, web pages, portable document format files (PDFs), etc.). These charts, however, are not interactive.
Google offers an online service that allows users to create interactive charts using an interactive chart widget. Users enter data in an online spreadsheet having a look and feel similar to the Excel spreadsheet. Users can then highlight the data they want to use to make a chart and select a chart type. The widget generates the interactive chart.
The interactive features include a zoom feature and a mouse over pop-up window of data. These interactive charts can be embedded in online pages; however, the data in these charts is not secure because the widget fetches data when the screen is refreshed. Any HTML programmer can easily intercept the data stream from the Goggle spreadsheet. In addition, when the charts are copied into other documents (e.g., Microsoft Word documents, PDFs, etc.), the charts are no longer interactive. In addition, other users cannot access the data associated with the interactive chart or copy the interactive chart for their own use.